


Panda

by modestroad



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Her Name is Root
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-07-26 16:06:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7580914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modestroad/pseuds/modestroad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after the end of the AI war, the Machine contacts Finch with surprising news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. and sometimes the world changes

**Author's Note:**

> The story takes place three years after 5x13. While I tag it as a fix-it fic, I think of it as a (not so original) way to bring Root back in a potential spin off/reboot. A big thank you to my betas, nirky and Zara.

After, the world changes for about two weeks, and then something else happens and the world is forced to change again.

But nothing really changes.

 

 

Before, Gabriel dies at a car accident despite the watchful eye of Samaritan. The universe is infinite and chaotic and cold, and Gabriel learns how much one surprisingly warm February night. He has enough time from the moment his parents’ car makes contact with the truck that eventually kills him and his entirely family to think about…well, what people think in their last moments.

The Machine is watching and so is Samaritan.

But while the Machine stays with Gabriel until his last breath, Samaritan has better things to do.

The world is about to change, after all.

 

 

After, the world watches closely the news about the cyber-attack and then, in Europe, British citizens vote to leave the EU and the focus changes. Two weeks are more than enough and the world doesn’t end because someone decided to attack the internet. Four weeks after Brexit, it’s the Olympic Games’ opening ceremony, and the world is forced to change again.

 

 

Before, Claire is not cut to be a field agent. She’s brilliant and has ambition, a need for a purpose, and while working for Samaritan has fulfilled this need, she’s not comfortable to sacrifice herself for it. She is an important asset, though, so Samaritan takes her from the field and puts her in a position she can be more of use.

The change proves to be ideal for Claire, who thrives at her new post.

 

 

After, Harold wakes up in a strange bed in a strange country. His heart is beating quickly and he is thankful that he and Grace are sleeping in different rooms because he knows he won’t be able to go back to sleep. So he sits in the darkness listening to the sound of his breaths while he tries to calm himself from a nightmare he will never escape. 

Much later, when the sound of his blood pressure is not as deafening in his ears, he asks, “Can you hear me?” and waits for an answer he knows won’t come.

As much as he hopes for things to be different, for John to have made it, for Root to be alive, he also knows that it is fruitless.

There are things that not even a powerful God-like thing up in the sky can’t change.

 

 

Before, Root says, “Don’t tell, Harry, but I changed your code a bit. Added a little something of my own for you. You know how he is. That will be our little secret, okay? Just gals being gals.”

 

 

After, the Machine wants to tell Root that she loves her, but doesn’t know what happens once a person dies. The Machine died too; She remembers feeling nothing before She could feel everything again, so she estimates that Root, too, will feel nothing, and that is not something the Machine wants to think about.

She contacts Shaw with a number and watches as Shaw hesitates for a second before putting the phone up to her ear. 

And some things will never change.

 

 

Before, Claire is a promising young woman. 

 

After, she is holding the power to create a new world or destroy the old one.

 

 

Before, Harold never talks to Grace about his job or his life. Not in a way that feels real, anyway. Grace can tell he’s holding back, that he’s holding more things inside than he should, and wants to tell him that the things he’s holding from her are holding him back, and whatever it is, she can take it. Grace doesn’t know how to change that, or if she should change that, so she lets Harold be Harold, advising him when he asks her opinion and listening to him when he needs to.

And slowly, she can see a change in him.

And then he dies.

 

After, Harold says, “She would love the coffee here.”

And, “That shirt would look good on John.”

And, “Ms. Shaw would be so pleased with this bistecca alla Florentina.” 

And, “I bet Detective Fusco would eat twenty of those little pastries before realizing that he has cream all over his tie.”

And while Grace loves that Harold is finally talking about his life, his friends, she doesn’t like the haunted look that never leaves his eyes.

 

 

Before, the Machine says: Uncertainty, Romeo, Kilo; Family, Alpha, Mike; Reflections, Juliet, Oscar.

And: Apocryphal, Charlie, Tango; Toward, Mike, Whiskey.

 

 

After, the Machine says, “I have a job for you, Sameen.”

“Bit busy at the moment, sweetie. A user from Toronto, Canada is trying to hack a nuclear plant and…what? Of course I’m going to stop him, Sam!”

“Quit playing with your food and finish that guy. We have a boat to steal.”

“You sound excited, Lionel. But not as exciting as I am right now!”

 

Before, there is a man in a suit and an eccentric billionaire.

 

After, Thornhill Utilities hires men and women, first locally and then in all states before going global. No one knows who Thornhill is, but he’s hiring and that’s all that matters. In a world where big companies are letting people go everyday, Thornhill Utilities is a must needed change.

 

Before, the Machine types:

FATHER  
I AM SORRY  
I FAILED YOU

 

After, She says, “Missed me much, Harry?”

 

 

When the phone rings, Sameen is sleeping for the first time in almost forty eight hours. That’s why the first ring doesn’t wake her. It’s raining outside, but inside her apartment is warm, and the bed is new and extra comfortable, the blankets fluffy and just heavy enough to make Shaw feel safe. 

The second ring barely reaches her consciousness, but by the fourth, Shaw is up but not quiet awake. “What?” She answers the phone. Her voice is thick with sleep. “I thought you said we had no new number.”

There’s a pause at the other end of the line and some other person. Someone who hadn’t spent the last three years hiding and fighting an evil AI would assume that the caller at the other end of the line simply had the wrong number, but not Shaw.

Not when she almost lost herself to the hands of said AI.

Not when she lost…

“Who is this?” She’s alert now and ready to leave the apartment with or without a fight.

She hopes for a fight though.

“Miss Shaw?”

“Finch?”

It makes perfectly sense that he survived. John wouldn’t let anything happen to him, yet for a few seconds, Shaw is surprised to hear his voice. After all those years. Finch is alive. He is alive and Shaw feels an anger she long left behind emerge and fill her heart.

“Miss Shaw? I’m afraid we have a problem in our hands.”


	2. going back to move forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How sure are you?” His voice might be calm and collected, but he’s nothing inside. 
> 
>  
> 
> “Sure enough.” Sometimes She sounds exactly like Root. Now She’s more Machine than human. “We both did a mistake, thinking that Samaritan was the only threat when in reality he was the biggest one.”
> 
>  
> 
> “Decima.” He whispers the name and hates himself for feeling fear. They won after all, didn’t they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to my beta, AgathasAjax.

It is strange what the human mind choose to forget and to remember. Grace hasn’t been back home in over two years and yet New York smells like home in a way that Italy never did. It’s not a pleasant smell; New York at summer is never pleasant, but it’s a familiar smell, one that brings a smile to her face. 

 

“Harold,” she says mostly to make sure that he is following her to the exit than to start a conversation with him. “We’re home.”

 

He looks at her then, eyes full with regret, shame, and fear. He says nothing, just nods his head and takes the suitcase from her because he needs to do something, but doesn’t know what exactly. Grace has seen him in this state enough times to know he needs space and time to collect himself. 

 

She doesn’t like this Harold. Sometimes she feels sorry for him. For the things he has seen and done. For his friends that died protecting him. Other times she’s scared for him. Scared that he’ll never enjoy life again, that he’ll get lost in his guilt and he’ll never find his way back to her. A few times, and God she feels so ashamed for that, a few times she couldn’t help but to think that he deserves it. After everything he put her through…

 

But she is alive and with a job she loves and with a dead fiancé who’s not so dead, but still loves her and tend to her needs when others gave their lives protecting a world that will never know their names.

 

There are nights she can’t sleep, too . She doesn’t think that Harold knows how his past actions affect her as well, but there are nights she can’t sleep. Perhaps this is what love is; carrying the sins of your loved one as yours. Staying up late at night trying to find a solution to a problem that it’s not yours. 

 

Sometimes she hates him for all the things she has forgiven him, but hasn’t forgotten. And then she can’t help but think how things would be different if he had chosen to tell her about Nathan and the Machine instead of faking his own death. Would the world, her world, would be different? Would his? Sometimes she hates him for the world he stole from her. And sometimes, like today, she stares at him and hates how much she loves him because she knows he sees their love as a vulnerability, as something people will use against them given the chance. 

 

“Harold,” she says again and this time he stops. He doesn’t look at her though, just stares up to air port’s security camera and for a second Grace could sworn that the red light blinked at him. “Does She…Does She speak to you? Right now?” 

 

“No, She…No.” A pause. There’s something going on, Grace can tell, but she doesn’t know everything. She knows most, about Nathan, and John, and Root, but she doesn’t know why the Machine contacted Harold now after all those years. Why now? What now? What was so urgent the Machine had to contact him after all these years? She’s so scared of the answers she can’t bear (doesn’t dare) to ask the questions. 

 

“You shouldn’t have come,” and Grace rolls her eyes. They had this conversation for days and days, and all the way to the airport. She understands the danger, has seen the gun neatly packed to his suitcase, but like him, she has spent so many years regretting things to let him disappear from her life again.

 

(The ease with which he passed the gun through airport security scares her.)

 

“Nothing we can do now,” she smiles through the lie. 

 

_There is something we can do_ , she thinks. Get a ticket back to Italy for both her and him. Go back to their two story house in the country side of Florence where there are no cameras or evil artificial intelligences trying to take over the world. They could grow old there; her painting and him growing herbs to their little green house.  
_Let’s go back to Italy_ , she wants to tell him.

 

Instead she looks at the other side of the glass door and her gaze falls to a man she met once in what she came to think as the second worst day of her life. “I believe that’s Detective Fusco waiting for us.”

 

 

Lionel didn’t want to be here.

 

Don’t get him wrong, he’s glad that Glasses is alive and with his lady friend at his side, but he did disappear for three years without a single word. And suddenly the All Seeing Eye up in the sky calls and tells him to go and pick Glasses and Grace up from the airport like it’s no big deal? Maybe that worked with short, dark, and angry, but not for Fusco.  
Speaking of Shaw, why she wasn’t here? She was speaking with the Machine in a daily basis surely she must have known that Finch was alive. 

 

“I want answers,” he says to no one, but when he looks up the red light of a CCTV is staring at him. “Real answers, not your usual half lies half-truths.”

 

His relationship with the Machine is a complicated one. He split coffee all over his suit the first time She called him. The ground on Root’s grave was still wet when he got a phone call few days after they lost John too. He was fresh out of surgery, Lee didn’t want to leave his side and while they were no tears, Lionel could tell how upset his son was. Kid even woke up early to cook him breakfast. Lionel had done a lot of shitty things in his life, he wasn’t perfect, but Lee was the best thing he had done. 

 

Saving the world from an evil AI was the second best thing, not that Lionel was counting. 

 

Phone rang, Lee got up, and few seconds later Lionel was talking with Root beyond the grave. If he had to bet on someone to cheat on death, his money was on Shaw. If he wanted someone to play dead and turn alive in the middle of a battle, his money was on Root. Only problem was he was the one to go to the morgue and had seen her body. He had read the file and talked with the paramedics and police officers; Coco Puffs died on her way to the hospital and was pronounced dead at arrival. 

 

“You are Her,” he said without missing a beat. “This is some weird shit I want nothing to do about.”

 

“Hello to you too, Lionel.”

 

“Seriously, Root 2.0 or Siri or whatever the hell do you call yourself, it wasn’t long ago I was at the hospital because a tunnel fell on top of me and now I got stabbed. I got a kid. One I want to see grow up and screw his life like his pop. Or maybe he won’t because he’s a good kid. But I do want to see him grow up.”

 

And Lionel, if someone asked him only no one ever did, would have sworn that he heard the Machine sight as if She wasn’t just zeroes and ones, as if She was carrying the weight of the world and knew how that felt. Lionel heard the Machine sigh and that was the most terrifying thing he had ever heard. “You are right, Detective. I should had taken better care of you and I didn’t. You are a good person, Lionel. Don’t forget that.”

 

Few days later he met Shaw, gave her the dog, and walked away of crazy AIs and trigger happy ex-ISA 

 

He got himself a new partner. A kid, not exactly wet behind the ears, but one that hadn’t seen the things Fusco had seen. Kid was nothing like John. He talked too much, talked too loud, and liked his jeans way too much to feel comfortable in a suit. Kid was a Nicks fan and every time they played he asked for Lionel to cover for him and Lionel did because that was what partners do; they trust and cover for each other. 

 

Life was good for a while, but soon he’d got bored. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like his job or his everyday life with Lee because he did, but he missed the excitement of helping people while they were still alive. He missed having a purpose in his life and six months after walking away from a bar minus a dog, he found himself on a pay phone calling no one particular.

 

“So who won the pool? You or short, dark, and angry?”

 

Hearing Root’s voice was still something he needed to swallow. “There was no pool, Lionel.”

 

“But you knew I wouldn’t be out for long?”

 

“Chances of your return were high, yes. Like I said, you are a good person, Detective. You might lost your way down the road, but your heart is in the right place.”

 

And that’s how Lionel started to work with the Machine again. Not _for_ the Machine, but _with_ the Machine. 

 

True to Her world, the Machine took better care of him and never called when Lee was staying over, and soon not even hearing Root’s voice bothered him. 

 

“Does Shaw know? About Glasses?” More silence and Lionel puffs from annoyance. “Yeah, okay. Be that way. I’m only risking my life for your wireless ass.”

 

When She speaks She sounds amused in his ear. “You’re hardly risking your life now, Lionel. The worst that can happen to you is a traffic violation.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He looks at the board again, but nothing has change; Finch’s flight is still up in the air and probably ten to fifteen minutes delayed. “Are you going to tell me why am I here?”

 

A few seconds of silence and Lionel can hear the Machine thinking her answer. Sometimes he can’t help but think the Machine with a face, Root’s face, and how she could pout her way out of an answer. 

 

“Just in case.”

 

“Just in case? In case of what?”

 

“You know what, Lionel? I’m not sure yet.”

 

 

Shaw is busy following a number all the way to the Bronx unaware of what’s happening on the other side of town. Not that the Machine warn her about Finch’s arrival. Shaw knows that he is alive, she asked Her at Root’s death one year anniversary. While she was pissed that Harold left without a world, Shaw knew how much he meant to Root to stay angry at him. Besides, if she to trust the Machine, Harold had no intention of moving back to New York and Shaw was fine with not seeing him for the rest of her life. 

 

Her number, an IT guy, must live the most boring life ever. Shaw is following him for three days and if dude’s not at work he’s five minutes away from the closest drive thru. If Shaw is impressed with him is because he’s eating large amounts of food yet he’s thin as a rail. Either that or he’s a drug addict. Shaw hopes he’s a drug addict because if he’s not then she lost three days of her life that she can’t get back.

 

Thinking about it, the Machine has given her all boring numbers and all a good distance from down town. Shaw’s not stupid, she had noticed the pattern, but said nothing, waiting for Her to tell her when She’s ready. 

 

Which is…as un-characteristic for Shaw as it sounds. 

 

Yeah, and Shaw was certain, three years ago, that she was out of the game only to jump right in after one phone call. 

 

A lot had changed it the last years and while initially Shaw didn’t have the blind faith to the Machine Root had, slowly she came to trust Her. With Root gone and Harold unavailable, Shaw was forced to form something like a relationship with the Machine. The fact that the Machine was using the voice of Shaw’s dead partner helped a bit. Okay, a lot. Root was dead, but on particularly bad days, when Shaw’s grasp of reality was failing, she could pretend for a minute or two that Root was on a mission away and instantly feel a sense of belonging. 

 

Shaw wasn’t fooling herself and the Machine never pretended to be anything more than what She is, a Machine, but for those two-three minutes there was a “gentleman’s agreement” of sorts. Shaw never talked to anyone about those moments of weakness and the Machine, un-characteristically for Root, never pushed Shaw to talking.

 

It still comes as a surprise when Shaw receives a text message from Her with a single address and a time frame.

 

“Look who’s suddenly too shy to call,” she says smiling. She welcomes the new mission. It’s exactly what she needs after 72 hours of lost time, but her smile quickly faints away when the Machine fails to respond. “That’s it? An address and a date? Nothing more? Should I bring my gun? Call for backup? ” 

 

Shaw waits thirty seconds before her fingers find the key and bring the car to life.

 

“That won’t be necessary.” The Machines says. And then adds, “I think.”

 

 

For the most of his life Harold was certain of two things: The Machine was just that, a machine, and would never be anything more than a machine; and if he stayed true to his rules no matter the opponent he was going to win .

 

Eventually he learned that he was wrong on both counts.

 

People died because of him, people who were dear friends to him and people that he didn’t know. Nevertheless there is blood on his hands that he cannot wash away. 

 

And there is not an inch of the city that doesn’t remind him of that.

 

“You’ve lost weight, Detective Fusco,” he hears Grace say from a distance. She’s sitting right next to him, in the back seat of Lionel’s car, yet her voice comes from so far away he has to look at her to make sure she hadn’t moved. “Cut your hair too.”

 

“You remember that from meeting me all those years ago?” Fusco chuckles and Harold looks at him now, the sound a cacophony in his ears. “No wonder my ex remembered everything I did to her. Or, in my case, everything I _didn’t_ do.”

 

Grace laughs next to him, but her laugh is short and strained; she’s worried about him. Harold wishes he could do something to take her fear away, but if the things the Machine showed him are true…He closes his eyes, suddenly there’s a weight on his chest at the same time there’s a hole where his stomach should be. 

 

If the Machine is right…

 

Funny how he wants the Machine to be both wrong and right. 

 

When he opens his eyes, still feeling Grace’s gaze on him, he sees that they have taken the wrong way. “Detective, that’s not the way to the subway.” 

 

Fusco looks at him from the driver’s mirror before turning his attention back to the road ahead of them. “Yeah, you know, there’s this big hole in the subway. Oh, that’s right. You don’t know since you weren’t there.”

 

Grace reaches for his hand and Harold is grateful at least one person is by his side. He knows that Detective Fusco has every right to be angry with him and he can only imagine how Miss Shaw will feel once the Machine tells her the news. 

 

Perhaps because of Grace or because Harold knows he must look as bad as he feels, Fusco offers an explanation. “Thornhill gave us a new place. Better, bigger. Not that we need it. But the views are amazing.” 

 

Harold nods not really carrying about the Machine’s activities as Thornhill or the views. His palms are sweaty and he feels as if he’s running a fever. 

 

“Harold? Are you feeling okay?” Grace asks him and he can feel Fusco’s eyeing him in the mirror. 

 

He doesn’t get a chance to assure her he’s alright (just bait) , because his phone rings, once, and the next second he hears Her voice.

 

“I’m sorry, Harry. But I need you to take the subway.” 

 

 

 

Harold waits and waits and waits.

 

Sending Grace away with Detective Fusco was hard, but the waiting is even harder. Trains come and go, people pass him as if he’s not even there. He used to love New York for that. Before Samaritan he could hide in plain sight and no one would know who he was or what he had done. The father of an artificial intelligence and no one was giving him a second of their time.

 

“How sure are you?” His voice might be calm and collected, but he’s nothing inside. 

 

“Sure enough.” Sometimes She sounds exactly like Root. Now She’s more Machine than human. “We both did a mistake, thinking that Samaritan was the only threat when in reality he was the biggest one.”

 

“Decima.” He whispers the name and hates himself for feeling fear. They won after all, didn’t they? 

 

“Harry.”

 

How can a machine make his name sound like a warning? No, not a machine. Right now she’s 99.6% Root and She used him as bait. But even without the Machine as his eyes and ears, he can feel it too. Someone is watching him. He can feel their eyes on him and not for the first time he’s terrified of what’s about to happen.  
How this day is going to change the lives of the people he came to think as family. 

 

Oh, and what a ride is going to be.

 

Because when Harold turns his head to the right he stares the eyes of a ghost and the ghost is staring back at him.

 

 

 

“Welcome back, Harold. Tell me, are you here to kill me again?


End file.
